Ashes to Ashes
by PervyMonk
Summary: The Dragonborn gets more than she bargained for after taking Aventus Aretino's contract.
1. Chapter 1

Erandur doesn't think much of it when he awakes and Deirdre had already gone. She usually woke early in the day to smith or practice her swordsmanship. He yawns, pulling the door to her room shut and balancing breakfast for two people between his arms and chest. He'd probably find her later in the day, chatting with Adrianne or saddling their horses for another long quest.

He spends the day wandering around Whiterun, admiring the city and inquiring about Deirdre. She could hardly go unnoticed as the Dragonborn and he tried to quell the unease that settled in his chest when the townsfolk said they hadn't seen her. He makes his way to the stables to see if she had decided to go alone. The thought of her leaving him behind stings a bit but he hopes she had thought to at least take Lydia. After all, dragons were easier to fight with a companion.

Both horses, Brenna and Vavren, are in the stables munching on the apples Jervar feeds them.

"Has Deirdre been here?" Erandur asks. Brenna's tail wags at the name of her master. Jervar shakes his head.

"Haven't seen her since yesterday," he answers. Erandur nods, eyeing the horses before making his way back to Breezehome.

He gets there just after Lydia does. He sees her walk up the stairs and she immediately opens the door to Deirdre's room. He follows her and looks over her shoulder, expecting to see her sitting on her bed reading a book. But all he sees are the mussed sheets he saw this morning, bed empty of its occupant.

"You didn't find anything either, did you?" Lydia asks.

"No," he says. "I didn't. "


	2. Chapter 2

Deirdre moans, hands reaching up to cradle her head. She opens her eyes and tries to blink away the fuzziness. She can make out the red lines of bonds that had been on her wrists.

"Sleep well?" a silky voice rings out. Deirdre winces at the sound.

"Where," she says, swallowing past a dry throat. "Where am I?"

"Does it matter?" the voice asks, and she finds her eyes drawn to a woman lounging on top of a bookshelf. "You're warm, dry and very much alive. More than can be said for poor Grelod, hmm?"

"You know about that?" Deirdre asks, pushing herself up. Her arms quiver holding her weight up and her nails dig into the wood at the effort. The woman scoffs.

"Old woman gets butchered in her own orphanage? Half of Skyrim knows. Things like that tend to get around." Deirdre shakes her head. She remembers Aventus Aretino. The boy had been mad with desperation, setting up an arcane and unwholesome ritual in his own house. She had found him bent over the skeleton of some poor soul drenched in blood and houses a human heart. Erandur had hissed sharply behind her but whatever he had said to her had been drowned out by the boy chanting '_sweet mother, sweet mother,'_ as though he were calling for his actual mother and not for some Dark Brotherhood assassin. The desperation and sadness in his voice had brought thoughts of her own mother to mind and so she had accepted his grisly contract.

Now, she wishes she hadn't.

"Oh, but don't misunderstand," the woman says, tilting her head at Deirdre's grim expression. "I'm not criticizing. It was a good kill. And you saved a bunch of street urchins, to boot. All very wholesome and _hero-like._ But there is a slight, ah, problem."

"Always is." The woman's eyes crinkle underneath her cowl as though she is smiling.

"You see, the Aretino boy was looking for the Dark Brotherhood. For me, and my associates. Grelod the Kind was, by all rights, a Brotherhood contract. A kill that you _stole._ A kill you must repay."

"You want me to murder someone else?" Deirdre asks, her voice laced with poorly concealed disgust. "Who?"

"Find the idea unpalatable, do you? Well then. That's a little unexpected but amusing. It's funny you should ask. If you turn around, you'll notice my guests. I've collected them from, well. That's not really important, now is it? The here and now. That's what matters." Deirdre doesn't comprehend her words, instead looking over at the woman's three captives in horror. She hears one man crying softly, and another-a khajit-swearing, struggling against his bounds. The loudest is the woman in the middle, ranting and raving about not having time to be captured.

"You see, there is a contract out on one of them and that person can't leave this room alive. But, which one is it? Go on and see if you can figure it out." Deirdre pushes herself off of the rotting table she had been laying on, craning her neck in an effort to ease the stiffness. Her glass bow and greatsword are leaned against the wall by the door. She gathers her weapons and tries the doorknob, not expecting much. It barely moves and the woman tsks.

"Make your choice. Make your kill. I want to watch and admire." Deirdre looks up at her and back to the captives. Her sword feels heavy in her hands as she goes to talk to each prisoner.

The crying man, a Nord, begs for his life.

"Please," he says, sniffling. "I don't want to die."

"Shh," she says, the words heavy on her tongue. "It's alright. No one is going to hurt you. Tell me why you think they would."

He's a mercenary, someone likely to have a contract on him. The woman is a little harder to figure out. She's a mother of five and, by the looks of it, the sixth is on the way. She rails and rants and struggles against her bonds. Deirdre almost wants to put a sword in her hands just to see how she'd fair.

The khajit is crafty, possibly a thief and counter-fitter. His voice seeps with threats and promises of a painful death. He talks of friends in low places who would come to his aid at the snap of a finger but there is no one else around. Deirdre looks at the woman and meets her gaze. Her eyes are alight with a strange curiosity that makes Deirdre's stomach churn.

"You said kill the contract," she says. The woman's eyes crinkle again.

"Choose carefully," she warns gleefully, her hand already on the hilt of her blade.


	3. Chapter 3

Deirdre stumbles into the night, wounds bleeding profusely. Nothing she had done had been able to staunch the bleeding. The woman had wielded an enchanted blade that seemed to suck the very life from Deirdre and give it to her. She doesn't know how she had managed to find the strength to plunge her sword through the woman's heart.

She'd cut the captive's bonds and fled before they could do anything other than rub their wrists. She'd done everything to tend to her wounds-magic, potions, bandages-but the blood just kept flowing. Her clothes had become stained through and she'd long since run out of bandages. She is tired and weak but has no idea where she is or where the nearest settlement is located. Her boots have become soaked through by the swamp's dank water and her feet feel like blocks of ice. She pushes forward, not knowing what else to do.

The night seems unusually dark as though all of the stars had burned out and the auroras had fled to different skies. The moon is a dim bright spot in a sea of darkness. She can hardly see the ground in front of her and she stumbles over her own two feet, hands sinking into the marshland as she struggles to push herself up. A familiar, blood-curdling roars rings out through the night. The pounding of her heart almost drowns out the sound. She stumbles as she flees looking for a place to hide. _Please,_ she thinks as the dragon flies over her. Deirdre dives into a cave as the dragon roars and she trips, sliding down further into darkness as the dragon rages. She stops sliding, the ground tearing at her back, and watches the ice the dragon breathes into the cave fly over her and embed in the walls. She hears it growl as it tries to follow her into the cave, wings scraping against the walls before getting stuck.

She doesn't dare move.

Eventually, the dragon tires of the fruitless effort of chasing her and she hears the beating of wings as it flies off. She sits up, head spinning and dirt sticking to her still bleeding wounds. She feels unnaturally cold and she shivers, arms wrapping around herself in a pitiful effort to keep warm.

"You," a voice hisses beside her ear, causing her to jump. "A lost lamb wandering into the wolves' den. Frightened, alone, bloodied." She stiffens as the voice pauses to sniff and she feels a cold exhale of breath beside her neck.

"How fortunate I am," the voice whispers almost lovingly. Cold fingers trace the outline of her neck, smearing blood across her skin and stopping over her hammering pulse. "I've been hungry for days."


	4. Chapter 4

Erandur silently gathers up his few belongings. A few scarce books, his mace (_a gift from Deirdre. She had been at the forge for days slaving over it, making sure every last detail was perfect and-)_ some potions and food. The Amulet of Mara hangs on his neck, hidden underneath his robes, giving him little comfort. He says a quick prayer to the mother goddess before turning to walk out the door.

"I'm going with you," Lydia calls from the top of the stairs. She's already donned her armor and her greatsword rests on her back, bringing to mind images of how she and Deirdre liked to spar. He shakes his head.

"No," he says simply.

"Look, I know you and I have our differences," she says. "But Deirdre is my thane and, more importantly, my _friend_ and you-"

"Lydia," he says gently. "Someone needs to be here if she gets back before I find her." She looks around the house, seemingly large in its emptiness, and shakes her head.

"What will happen?" she asks. "If she doesn't come back? I doubt you and I would be able to slay many dragons without her."

"She'll come back," Erandur says in an effort to reassure her. _I'll do everything in my power to make sure of it._


	5. Chapter 5

Deirdre drifts in and out of consciousness. Unfamiliar sounds are punctuated by familiar visions, memories that she has already lived, and fantasies of what she would like to happen. All of her thoughts, all of her dreams and fears and ambitions, are wrapped up in a haze underlined by a damnable cold.

_Erandur smiles at her warmly underneath his cowl._

"Wake up, lovely." The words are muffled and she struggles to make sense of them.

"_Deirdre," he says, motioning her along. _

"Come on, lovely. Aren't you hungry?"

"_I've made mudcrab legs. Well, what passes for them anyway. Er, if they taste bad, try to be discreet about it, unlike Lydia was, the rude cow." _

" Wake up, darling."

"Erandur?" she whispers past a dry throat. She's so _thirsty. _Why is he calling her pet names? He's never done so before. "Erandur, I'm cold. Can we start a fire?" A harsh laugh causes her to stir, bringing her to her senses.

"I'm afraid there isn't going to be any more fire for you. No sun, either." She opens her eyes to see the pale face of death hovering over her. She's lying on a mattress hard as stone, harder than the beds in Windhelm, and her hands are bound to a rotting headboard. The bonds are tight enough to cut off circulation and she can't feel her hands.

"I've been threatened with that before," she says, stumbling over her words. "Never seeing the sun again." He laughs again, brushing hair from her brow.

"Not like this, lovely. Not like this, I promise you." Darkness blankets the cave like a funeral shroud but Deirdre can make out every seemingly minute detail. The monster leaning over her-had he ever been a man?-smiles, showing yellowed and black fangs. His face is a grotesque caricature of what a face should look like, skin drawn in an endless snarl and eyes glowing red. She licks her lips and his eyes are drawn to her mouth. He smirks, brushing away hair that has become stuck to her forehead.

"What have you done to me?" She has difficulty forming the words. Something foreign has decided to take up residence in her mouth and she's having difficulty speaking.

"I've saved you," he says. "And now I'll never be alone again."

"Saved me?"

"Yes," he says, almost tenderly brushing her cheek. "At first, I was just going to drink you dry. But no matter how much I drank, you just didn't die. You opened your eyes and gazed into my soul." He gives a wry chuckle. "Well, what's left of it, anyway. Your eyes were such a striking green, so full of determination and a little bit of malice. I found myself entranced and I just had to have you, had to make you like me. I think that's what I'll miss the most," he says, hand trailing back up to her hair, the nails scratching at the skin. "Your eyes."


End file.
